solar financing tax equity structures: sale-leasebacks, inverted...
TRANSCRIPT
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Presenting a live 90-minute webinar with interactive Q&A
Solar Financing Tax Equity Structures:
Sale-Leasebacks, Inverted Leases
and Partnership Flips Choosing the Right Structure, Weighing Advantages and Drawbacks of Various Structures
Today’s faculty features:
1pm Eastern | 12pm Central | 11am Mountain | 10am Pacific
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2016
Keith Martin, Partner, Chadbourne & Parke, Washington, D.C.
Jorge Medina, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Tax, SolarCity,
San Mateo, Calif.
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Solar Tax Equity Structures
Keith Martin [email protected]
Jorge Medina [email protected]
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6
The tax benefits on solar projects amount to
roughly 56¢ per dollar of capital cost.
Solar tax equity deal volume was $6.8 billion in
2015. Wind and solar together were $13
billion. Solar deal volume is expected to be
higher in 2016.
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7
Solar projects must be under construction by
2019 to qualify for a 30% investment tax
credit. The credit drops to 26% for projects that
start construction in 2020 and to 22% for projects
that start construction in 2021. Such projects
face an outside deadline to be in service of the
end of 2023. Projects that do not qualify under
these provisions still qualify for a 10% investment
credit. The 10% credit is permanent.
residential solar credit
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We stopped counting last year at 35 tax equity
investors. Many new investors have entered the
market this year, but most are doing just one or
two deals.
inappropriate TEIs
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Tax equity yields were trending down last year,
but have not been falling further this year. Tax
equity investors are charging structuring fees and
unused commitment fees and are often pricing to
a second yield 50-bps higher at year 20. Utility-
scale solar yields are 7.25% to 8% unleveraged
for the least risky deals involving the most
experienced sponsors. Yields for rooftop solar
for brand-name developers are around 9%.
$1.10 to $1.32
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Leverage can increase yield by at least 500
bps. There is little debt ahead of tax equity in the
capital structure. Project-level debt requires a
forbearance agreement.
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There are three main structures with two
significant variations. The three are partnership
flips, inverted leases and sale-leasebacks.
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A partnership flip is a simple concept. A sponsor
brings in a tax equity investor as a partner to own
a renewable energy project together. The
partnership allocates taxable income and loss
99% to the tax equity investor until the investor
reaches a target yield, after which its share of
income and loss drops to 5% and the sponsor
has an option to buy the investor's interest. Cash
may be distributed in a different ratio before the
flip.
call option
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Basic Yield Flip
FMV Call Option
Sponsor
1/95
Tax Equity Investor
99/5
Utility Sponsor
Affiliate PPA O&M Contract
Project
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The IRS issued guidelines for partnership flip
transactions in 2007. The guidelines provide a
"safe harbor" for transactions that conform to
them. Most do. The IRS said in 2015 that the
guidelines were written with wind projects in
mind and are not a safe harbor for solar
transactions.
central tension
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There are two main variations in flip
structures. In addition to the yield-based flip,
there is also a fixed-flip structure that is offered
by a small subset of tax equity investors and that
leaves as much cash as possible for the sponsor.
2% preferred cash distributions
put and call
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Fixed Flip
Put and Call Option
Sponsor
1/95
Tax Equity Investor
99/5 +
2% preferred cash
distributions
Utility Sponsor
Affiliate PPA O&M Contract
Project
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The sponsor is responsible for day-to-day
management of the project. TEI consent is
required for a list of "major decisions."
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The TEI may invest by buying an interest in the
partnership from the sponsor ("purchase model")
or by making capital contributions to the
partnership ("contribution model"). The
purchase model may give the TEI a larger basis
step up for calculating tax benefits.
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Almost all partnership flip transactions have
"absorption" issues. Each partner has a "capital
account" and "outside basis" that are two ways of
measuring what the partner put into the deal and
what it is allowed to take out in tax benefits. Most
TEIs run out of capital account before they are
able to absorb 99% of the depreciation.
DRO
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DROs are getting as high as 43% in some deals.
The IRS said in early October that it has concerns
about “whether and to what extent it is
appropriate to recognize DROs.”
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In many solar deals, the income allocated to the
tax equity investor drops to 67% after year 1 until
the partnership turns tax positive. The sharing
ratio is then restored to 99% once the partnership
starts earning income. The deal does not flip
until there is at least one year of meaningful
taxable income.
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Yield-based flips in the solar market price to
reach yield in six to eight years. Fixed-flip deals
flip at five to six years. Investors want at least a
2% pre-tax yield.
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In a sale-leaseback, the solar company sells the
project to a tax equity investor and leases it
back. Unlike a flip where the TEI gets at most
99% of the tax benefits, all the tax benefits are
transferred to the TEI without complicated
partnership accounting. The TEI calculates them
on the fair market value purchase price it pays for
the project. The lessee has a gain on sale to the
extent the project is worth more than it cost to
build.
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Sale-Leaseback
Sale
Utility PPA
Project
Sponsor
Lessor
Lease
Tax Equity Investor
Debt
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A flip raises 40% to 60% of the project value. A
sale-leaseback raises 100% in theory. In practice,
the sponsor is usually required to repay part of
the purchase price as prepaid rent.
section 467 loan
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The IRS has guidelines for leveraged leases
where the lessor raises part of the purchase price
by borrowing from a bank. These guidelines limit
the term of the leaseback to 80% of the expected
life and value of the project. If the lessee wants to
keep the project at the end of the lease, the lessee
must repurchase it. Any lessee purchase option
cannot be at a price that makes the option
reasonably likely to be exercised.
economic compulsion
equity investment
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Sale-leasebacks remain common in the C&I and
utility-scale solar markets. They are uncommon
in the rooftop market, where the deals are split
currently between partnership flips and inverted
leases. Rooftop companies dislike sale-
leasebacks because they feel the TEIs pay too
little at inception for the residual value.
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Inverted leases are used mainly in the rooftop
market. Think of a yo-yo. The solar company
assigns customer agreements and leases rooftop
solar systems in tranches to a tax equity investor
who collects the customer revenue and pays
most of it to the solar company as rent. The solar
company passes through the investment credit to
the tax equity investor. It keeps the
depreciation. The solar company takes the asset
back at the end of the lease.
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Basic Inverted Lease
Customers Solar PPA
or
Lease
Lessor
Lease
Sponsor
Sponsor
Affiliate
Assignment of
customer agreements
Master
Installation
Agreement
Tax Equity
Investor
Sponsor O&M
Agreement
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Sponsors like inverted leases because they get
the asset back without having to pay for it, and
the investment credit is calculated on the fair
market value of the solar equipment rather than
its cost. Unlike a sale-leaseback, the step up in
asset basis does not come at a cost to the
sponsor of a tax on a commensurate gain.
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There are no IRS guidelines for inverted leases,
unlike the other two structures. However, the
structure is common in historic tax credit deals,
and the IRS acknowledged it in guidelines in early
2014 to unfreeze the historic tax credit market
after a US appeals struck down an aggressive
form of the structure in a case called Historic
Boardwalk.
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The TEI must have upside potential and downside
risk to be considered a real lessee. Some tax
counsel like to see a "merchant tail.” Others
focus on the amount of prepaid rent paid by the
lessee and want to see at least a 20% rent
prepayment.
big four
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Inverted leases raise 20% to 45% of project value.
The central challenge in inverted leases is how
the capital raised by the structure moves from the
TEI to the sponsor. In the conservative form, it
moves as prepaid rent. In an overlapping
ownership structure, the lessor makes a capital
contribution to the lessor, and the lessee owns
49% of the lessor.
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Sponsor
51%
Overlapping Ownership
Inverted Lease
Lessee
49%
Sponsor
1/99
Tax Equity
Investor
99/5
+ withdrawal right
Lease
FMV Call Option
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The three structures vary in terms of the amount
of capital raised, risk allocation and the timing of
when the TEI must invest. The sponsor must turn
to other sources of capital (debt and equity) to
raise the rest of the project cost.
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Focusing on risks, in a sale-leaseback, the
sponsor has a hell-or-high-water obligation to pay
rent and must indemnify the TEI for loss of tax
benefits and any acceleration of rental income
due to a lessee breach of a representation or
covenant. In a flip, the TEI's return turns on how
well the project performs. The TEI's protection is
it sits on the project at a 99% level until it reaches
a target yield.
inverted lease
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The principal business risks in any transaction
are weather, technology, vacancy risk and
offtaker credit.
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Basis risk tends to be borne by the sponsor,
although this has been true only since 2010.
Tax risks about which the sponsor has special
insight are borne by the sponsor. Tax risks into
which both the sponsor and TEI have equal
insight are borne by the TEI. Risks over which
neither has special insight are jump balls.
fixed tax assumptions
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The government lost two key cases involving tax
basis issues in the last two weeks. Another
closely-watched case will go to trial in the US
claims court January 30 through February 10.
Alta
LCM Energy Solutions
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Turning to timing, the TEI must be a partner in a
flip deal before the project is placed in service.
In some transactions, the TEI makes enough of its
investment before the project is put in service to
be a partner and contributes the rest after final
completion. Inverted leases must be done before
assets go into service. A sale-leaseback can be
done up to three months after the asset is put in
service.
unwind risk
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The investment credit vests over five years. The
unvested credits will be recaptured if the assets
are disposed of or a partner disposes of his
interest or there is more than a one-third
reduction in his share of partnership profits
during the first five years.
stop loss shift
RECs
lock-in effect
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The asset basis must be reduced by half the
investment credit. In an inverted lease, since the
lessee claims the credit but does not claim
depreciation, it must report 50% of the credit as
income ratably over five years. If the lessee is a
partnership, some TEIs used the income to
increase "outside basis" and then claim a loss
when they withdraw from the partnership.
An IRS notice in July put a halt to this practice.
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Some recurring issues in deals are the following:
basis risk change-in-law risk
in-service risk affiliate sales
cash sweeps merchant risk
back-leverage interplay OCC
tax insurance Volcker rule
book loss new IRS audit rules
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Solar Tax Equity Structures
Keith Martin [email protected]
Jorge Medina [email protected]